The Marketing Strategies of Fashion Brands - Coursework Example

Marketing strategies of Fashion brands Introduction The fashion industry is a popular and a competitive industry. The competition is so much imperative in the designing, branding, and marketing. Any fashion industry must therefore be very creative and current in order to keep the potential customers prospective of the mentality of product development stages to the product evaluation stage. Regardless of the extent of the fashion industry or the coverage, brainstorming creative marketing strategies bridges the success or the failure of the industry (Lowe & Dooley, 2008:347). Any prospective fashion industry must establish the goals, which it has to achieve within a set period. The owner of the industry or manager for that matter should create campaigns that attract more customers hence increased sales within a year or month. Being able to communicate effectively with the customers forms a solid base for the success of the fashion industry. Acquiring ambassadors who represent the industry and share their experiences with the brand boosts the industry substantially. Contrasting marketing strategies Different fashion industries apply different strategies to market their products. More often than not, these interlink and some contrast. Fro example a certain industry may use fashion blogs and another may use fashion showcase to market their products. There are two marketing strategies but they are very contrasting. For the fashion blog marketing strategy the industry ventures deeply online to research on their product line and look for reviews from their customers than it includes blog on the social networks. On the other hand, fashion showcase includes gathering of a small gathering for the industry to debut its fashion trend to the key people of the fashion who have the potential of high profile clientele. During the event, the customers have exposure to the displayed items throughout the room (Hartline, & Ferrell, 2010:487). In a different case, one company may use location-based strategy to market its product while another may use pricing strategies. In the location-based strategy, the company in question may involve mobile social marketing strategies where it has to hoist substations in the areas where most of its customers are situated. In the pricing marketing strategy, the company combines pricing and product quality to attract his potential customers. The industry gives its customers products at a reasonable price. The main aim for these is in order for the industry to establish a strong mutual relation with the local and international relation and to maintain creativity in its marketing strategies (Kumar, 2009:257). Bloggers are very essential in determining the public relations and enabling the entire public to contact the fashion industry for professional assistance. This is a very creative way for marketing of products through the internet. How the fashion market has changed The fashion industry has undergone tremendous changes in the recent past starting at the multiple ends of value chain that affect the various players of the industry. Likewise, the market for the fashion industry has also changed. Customers are increasing their demand therefore the fashion industry has to be very creative and innovative for current styles at attractive prices and on frequent basis. This becomes a long-lasting challenge to the industry, therefore it has to find new ways to secure to secure growth and profits while satisfying the customers demands at the same time. The market change has been due to technological advancement. Technology advancement has enabled the fashion industries accomplish their tasks with greater efficiency. The fashion industry has designed software called Product Lifestyle Management (PLM), which has substantially increased the sophistication and incorporated wide assortment of techniques that are very beneficial to the company (Hartline & Ferrell, 2010:587). The PLM is not just a set of technologies but also a strategic business approach that integrates the persons to the systems and information. The PLM provides a collaborative design environment that has streamlined the extensive usability. Therefore, fashion designers and the retailers are heavily investing in the PLM applications to invent more styles in less time and improve the market. The PLM has help organizations to market their products faster and increase the collaboration across the extended ecosystem. The common goal for any fashion industry is to increase the market their newly invented products in the market. Efforts are thus impacted to reduce product development time in the rapidly evolving market. The current economic environment and the increasingly competitive landscape pressurizes the retailers to reduce cost and maintain quality in order to increase market hence profitability. The market of the fashion industry has changed because of the many methods applied by the various companies to out do each other. The industries have increased collaboration across the extended ecosystem. Others have specialized in a single product-driven and knowledge based extended enterprise. Other industries are encouraging the standardized usability across the key processes that enable their dashboards to track and review process flow issues in the market (Lowe & Dooley, 2008:245). Luxury designer strategy and high street The luxury industry segment deals with watch making, jewelry, wines and spirits whereas the high fashion streets makes the leathered fashion goods . Globally, the world citizens focus on the debt paying rather than spending. The luxury designer attracts the attention of the rich and the famous. The fashion was in order to swipe away the poor and the wannabes out of the luxury goods. They can only buy lookalikes at the counterpart copycats designers. The luxury designers are even creating special clothing and accessory lines for the fast fashion superstars. Chanel’s Karl was the Lagerfeld to design for the collection of the luxury design. The high street fashion provides the latest fashion, styles, and preferences. Comparatively, the high street fashion is better than the luxury designer strategy. This is because the former is not selective and does not focus on a certain class of persons. The high street fashion bases more on the creativity unlike the luxury industry which focuses on the ability of a person to purchase (Kumar, 2009:355). PR and celebrity endorsement Celebrity endorsement of luxury fashion is not a new phenomenon in the industry. The culture invented by the Haute Couture in Paris in the 19th century, link celebrities to brands. Celebrities are extremely important and valuable to brands especially in the fashion sector. Celebrities, that is, the type of people who have significant influence in the various aspects of the society contribute to making and breaking of fashion brands. Fashion designers and brand managers recognize the effect of the celebrities in the pampering of fashion. Celebrity endorsement starts from the shooting the photograph of the of a beautiful model celebrity on the fashion magazine. Several factors have consideration before choosing a certain celebrity to endorse certain. Celebrities range from film stars, television hosts, musicians, politicians, and sports personalities. The nature of the celebrity like muscles, beauty, and charisma are essentials in the fashion industry promotion. According to the current research on the celebrity endorsement, the film actors and the musicians are the commonly used personnel’s in the endorsement of products. Celebrity endorsement has doubled in the past decade. The most common celebrities who feature majorly in the fashion endorsement are the music icon Madonna and the Hollywood star Halle Berry and Demy Moore. Generally, celebrity endorsement is a strategy which is undoubtedly with great importance in the marketing of luxury goods and if managed effectively they will run long-term benefits to the to the brand loyalty and brand equity hence translate to high sales turnover and brand value maintained (Hartline & Ferrell, 2010:689). Marketing means (Adverts/ YouTube clips and magazines) For many years, the fashion industries have traditionally relied on magazines for the advertisement. However, in the current society the magazine circulation has declined giving a leeway for the alternative marketing strategies that generate both sales and brand recognition. Many fashion and designers are looking for popular fashion blogs for the current trends. The fashion retailers are using online advertisement as the major marketing strategy. Most of the fashion industries have you tube clips through which the internet users can visit to get the latest fashion updates. Others use other media advertisement method like the television or the social networks (Kumar, 2009:541). The controversial you tube views is increasingly becoming common with the current number of viewers clinching to more than two million points in 2009. The number is growing and by 2012, the total you tube viewers were half a billion. The graph shows the growth of you tube viewers for the next five decades. Retrieved from http://wikileaksreputationcrisis.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/loewe-is-dead-long-live-loewe/ on 26 may 2012. Preference Currently, are going for the people fashion products for their daily consumption. There are many reasons attached to this trend. First, the fashion products are eco-friendly to the consumers and the persons working at the fashion industry. This is because most of the fashionable products currently come from the organic raw materials. Therefore, they contain no chemical emission or fabrics that may be environmentally hazard. Another reason for the preference of the fashion products is because; they correspond to the modern technology hence one can access from the one’s comfort unlike the old where one has to go searching in the market (Hartline & Ferrell, 2010:704). The fashion clothes have preference because they perfectly suit the standards of the modern ceremonies like weddings and classical youth celebrations. The current fashion meets the current demands and brings future anticipative needs. Target market and product development to the fashion industry The fashion industry conceptualizes its construction, selling and distribution of the designer products in order to suit the demands of all society members. It also focuses on the overseeing the preparation and implementation of quality assurance protocols for all their clients. The fashion industry has consistently researched on the new products that have given it many customers hence profits (Kumar, 2009:642). The qualitative level of the fashion industry is not questionable. The fashion industry has created ecommerce industries, which show the latest fashion on the homepage. The H&M focus on presenting featured collection for the fashion lovers. The ecommerce has seen unprecedented growth in the fashion industry where the increased activity settles at visual content. The Gucci turn round Tom Ford, an American designer has greately influenced the design industry. He transformed the Gucci fashion house to start creating its own products. Tom believed that the images one gets when young stick for the rest of ones life. With this in mind, Tom developed taste for the Gucci loafers, blue blazers, and a white shirt. The clash got international acceptance hence making a turnaround. Since then the Gucci Company is very resilient and adaptive and has survived many serious economic events and subsequent financial up heals (Hartline & Ferrell, 2010:723). The company has a record for having the highest quality products hence attracts even more customers. Despite all these, the main controversy remains to be which has brought the company the highest profit? Bibliography Hartline, M., & Ferrell, O. 2010. Marketing Strategy. Hampshire: Cengage Learning. 743 Kumar, R. 2009. Consumer Behavior and Branding: Concepts, Readings, and Cases-The Indian Context. Noida : Pearson Education India. 624 Lowe, R., & Doole, I. 2008. International Marketing Strategy: Analysis, Development, and Implementation. Hampshire: Cengage Learning EMEA. 462. Read More